“Verizon Wireless & Xfinity, Better Together,”

“Verizon customers will be able to browse television listings on a Verizon Samsung tablet and learn to set their DVR remotely using Xfinity’s service.” [NYTimes]

The RBOCs – ATT + VZ – don’t compete any more because the MSO’s decided that while they had spectrum it would be cost prohibitive to get into such a hyper-competitive market (what I call a Red Ocean).

FiOS only covers about 14% of the US – and there are no plans to extend that. So VZW sells cable service and cable sells VZW cell service – and presumably the consumers are happy.

“Six hundred Verizon stores already sell Comcast, Time Warner or Cox service to customers and offer gift vouchers of as much as $300 and other incentives if a Verizon customer signs up for cable. By the end of the year, Verizon expects 75 percent of its nearly 2,000 stores and kiosks to offer cable bundles to wireless customers.” This happiness will last until the bills go up because of not only lack of competition, but cooperation between the Duopoly. We are not getting more for our dollar. We are getting the same for more dollars.

Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC.
Service Providers have called on RAD-INFO INC for assistance building a channel, improving sales, managing online marketing efforts, and overall company strategy.
Contact RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884 or https://rad-info.net

Windstream like Zayo, the Duopoly and every other telco and cable company, is chasing Fiber-to-the-Tower (FTT or FTTT). According to Fierce, “about 60 percent of its FTTT sales have been is in its own markets where customers pay on a per Mbps basis.” WIND makes $164M per quarter on FTT.

WIND CEO says, “We’re getting better and better at this and we’re going to spend $250 million on fiber to the tower projects.” A lot of those millions are construction dollars – shovel ready if you will ;).

“Although Windstream’s wholesale revenues declined 12 percent, to $214 million, a factor the telco attributed the decline to a decision in the first quarter to suspend and modify certain wholesale products it inherited from its acquisition of PAETEC, Fiber to the Tower (FTTT) was a growth engine for its wholesale business.”

Wholesale revenues declining is becoming a trend. These figures will be propped up with stuff like FTTT.

Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC.
Service Providers have called on RAD-INFO INC for assistance building a channel, improving sales, managing online marketing efforts, and overall company strategy.
Contact RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884 or https://rad-info.net

The FCC has removed the prohibition of cable companies buying CLEC’s. Comcast bought CIMCO in 2009. It is the only deal like this thus far. Bankers are now in a frenzy.

Right now there are just two CLEC’s in BK – Broadview Networks and TNCI, but there are a lot of CLEC’s who are for sale.

With ATT reversing their decision to divest their copper plant, there is still money left for M&A.

Some deals we may see:

Sprint + MetroPCS

Cbeyond + Comcast

8×8 + TWC

Broadview, Integra, Sidera, Birch and some others are still waiting to be courted.

Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC.
Service Providers have called on RAD-INFO INC for assistance building a channel, improving sales, managing online marketing efforts, and overall company strategy.
Contact RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884 or https://rad-info.net

“Comcast’s (NASDAQ: CMCSA ) small business communications services segment generates $2.3 billion in annual revenue, which is growing 30 percent to 40 percent top line, the firm’s chief financial officer, Michael Angelakis, told listeners at the Goldman Sachs 21st Annual Communacopia Conference this week.”

By 4Q2012 Comcast will have rolled out Hosted PBX to all regions. It should be sold via channel partners by 1Q2013. By then, it will accelerate. Right now, cloud for Comcast is Hosted Exchange, Sharepoint and Hosted PBX.

Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC.
Service Providers have called on RAD-INFO INC for assistance building a channel, improving sales, managing online marketing efforts, and overall company strategy.
Contact RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884 or https://rad-info.net

Ting is owned by webhosting company Tucows. Forbes has an article about how Ting is re-thinking its approach to business cell phone service. It’s about features as value adds.

Ting just added the Samsung Galaxy S3 phone to its line-up. Sprint MVNO execs told FISPA in Atlanta that handset contracts – like the iPhone – have to be handled by the MVNO themselves. That is where a middle man like Telispire or Sherpa can come in to play.

The other 2 US MVNOs making waves are Republic Wireless by Bandwidth.com and FreedomPop by the founders of Skype.

FreedomPOP will be giving away 500MB of data from Sprint and Clearwire per month. The catch is that their service is just wi-fi for your iPod.

Republic‘s trick is to “offload voice, messaging and data to WiFi wherever it’s available to offer unlimited everything for $19/mo.”

Notice that both tricks involve wi-fi networks and not the cell networks. That is to keep costs reasonable. In some ways, MVNO is the new UNE-P. In other ways, it is just a wholesale product for the cellcos – Sprint, Clearwire, ATT, VZW and T-Mobile. All offer MVNO plans. Some CLECs – like EarthLink, Cbeyond and TelePacific – have mobile offerings – that typically are limited and cost the CLEC real money.

“Telecom Service Bureau (TSB), a Florida-based MVNO, is on the hunt for resellers who want to act as carriers for their customers,” wrote CP mag. “Telecom Service Bureau is a mobile virtual network aggregator (MVNA) with the ability to offer a full suite of turn-key, support solutions to wireless service providers, allowing them to become an MVNO in the shortest time period, at the lowest possible cost. We specialize in low-income market support; provide industry-leading pricing and profit models for wholesale minutes; OSS support; handset procurement; advertising and distribution. To lower your overall operational cost, we bundle your back office network components and quickly provide order-to-cash solutions.”

That said Tracfone is probably the most successful MVNO in the US. Boost, Virgin Mobile are owned by Sprint to sell prepaid services on the under-utilized Sprint network. To emphasize a point: MVNO is NOT about PRICE because that plan requires scale that almost all MVNO’s lack! It is about niche, segments, or a value-add to your current client base.

“Telispire provides private-labeled nationwide wireless resale solutions for independent ILEC, CLEC and electrical cooperatives. Telispire has leveraged the power and reach of the national wireless carriers, a state of the art back office system and industry-wide business relationships to develop the premier mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). Turn-key solutions, combined with a dedicated team of telecommunications professionals, enable you to offer a nationwide wireless product that will enhance revenues and profitability….In 2006, National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC) bought a majority stake in Telispire.”

TelSpace is a billing provider for MVNOs. This might be an option for FISPA.

Peter Radizeski is a telecommunications consultant and analyst with RAD-INFO INC.
Service Providers have called on RAD-INFO INC for assistance building a channel, improving sales, managing online marketing efforts, and overall company strategy.
Contact RAD-INFO INC at 813-963-5884 or https://rad-info.net